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A Story by Alskar

Based on the 9/11 disaster, this story is about a young police officer caught in a moral dilemma.

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7.47 am. Three blocks north west. Adam Spencer’s clock radio bursts into life, Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA crackles through the speakers. He unfurls himself from the quilt and slides into a pair of slippers, letting the song play out. The dressing gown hangs from behind the door. He wraps it round his frame, then steps out for breakfast. He reaches for the fridge. The slogan “No one knows a son better than a father” sits unnoticed on a fridge magnet as the door opens. The cereal cracks between his teeth when he sits to eat. A belt dangles from a coat hook, holster attached. On a table underneath, a portable radio sits.

7.58 am. Three blocks north west. Adam addresses himself briefly in the reflection of the clock radio, tucking his shirt into his trousers. He fixes his belt onto the second tightest notch, then looks back at the clock radio. A new patch of acne has sprouted on his nose. He doesn’t have time to wash it- his boots are pulled onto his feet and his footsteps ring through the apartment block. His phone rings as he veers into a sea of traffic.

“Hello?”

There is a brief silence. “You don’t have to go, you know. You can still drop out of the force.”

Adam bristles. “Mom, I can’t talk to you about this now. Please, I have to go. I’ll call you as soon as I’m finished work.”

“Adam,” Mom sounds pained. “Alright. Alright, you just call me as soon as you’ve finished work. And be careful, for God’s sake. I have to go, the tower’s security has tightened for some reason and everyone is being searched. ”

“It’s my first day, Mom. I’ll just get to drive around all day eating doughnuts.” He laughs. “I’ll call you later.“ And he hangs up.

8.14 am. One block east. Adam slips through the automatic doors into a nut brown gloom.

“Morning.” Officers call amiably. He shoots them awkward smiles on his way to the front desk.

“Adam Spencer? I’m new?” He receives his badge and gun, and is told to go to the police chief for further instruction. Something bites his chest as he climbs the stairs. Ten he was, when Dad first brought him here.

“Spencer! It’s been a while,” says Chief Roqhart. Adam agrees, glancing at a photo on the Chief’s desk. Chief Spencer, and then Sergeant Roqhart.

“Needing patrols on the east side,” he continues, picking up a cherry scone and chomping down, crumbs spraying. “Few gangs supposed to be hanging around there. Nuttin’ special, just drive around and keep an eye out for trouble. Officer Cumberland will be your partner. He‘s in the lobby waitin‘ on you.”

8.32 am. Two blocks west. The police car pulls up on the kerb, parked outside a grim, maroon apartment block.

“There,” says Officer Cumberland, pointing a slender, withered finger at the windscreen. “You can spot these guys from a mile away. We just wait until they make a wrong move, then we’ll get them.”

Adam looks out. A bunch of hooded teenagers are clubbed together, heads low and arms folded.

“It’s broad daylight,” Adam protests. “Do you think they would do anything?”

Officer Cumberland gives a stiff laugh. “These guys couldn’t care who was watching. We’re just here to make sure they don’t do anything.”

Adam sits back in his seat, folding his own arms and waiting for any further instalments. The digital clock becomes something appealing to watch. 8.44 am, then he counts the next sixty seconds in his head. Then it is 8.45 am, and he counts the next sixty seconds to 8.46 am.

His counting stops after twenty-one seconds. A thunderclap erupts through his body. The teens have dropped out of sight- they crouch on the ground, heads twitching wildly. It shivers through his body, it rips his eardrums apart. Then, it stops. Distant cries begin. Adam’s eyes turn to an unmoving Officer Cumberland, who begins to look back at him. Then, like a telepathic pact has been made, the two swing out of the car.

8.47 am. Two blocks west. The buildings give way to make a narrow path to the cause. A tower that once glistened with pride is marred with a snarling, crackling redness. The smoke billows out in elegant, dark plumes, pushing into the atmosphere. Everything slows, people in each and every crevice look up, look over, look down. Then the cries worsen, as there is a united realisation.

“That’s…the tower,” Adam informs Officer Cumberland. “My mom…”

He is spurred into action by an unknown force. The car becomes his stallion as he gets behind the wheel. Officer Cumberland yells through the window, hands slamming against the glass. Adam doesn’t listen. The car storms through the corridor to the dead end.

The screams are infectious. Bodies crash into each other and fall, barely noticing the car even as it screeches into position outside the tower. An alarm is sonorous in its monotone. The crowds spill out of the building, not one crack unfilled. Adam’s shouting is not heard.

“MOM! MOM!”

His back cracks against the concrete and the plastic creases of a shoe smash into his nose. He finds a gap and uses it to stand up, sticky burgundy dripping.

“MOM!”

Faces flash in front of him, each unseeing, each pair of eyes rounded. His fingers wrap around the barrel of his gun unconsciously. He would never shoot, but he could scare people out of his way.

He pauses in an unpausable world. Who was he to pull out a gun on people? Why should he be allowed to save his mother, when everyone else would have to wait desperately, depending mercilessly on the fire services to pull their loved ones free? It is against what he stands for. What Dad had stood for.

There isn’t any more time to think. In a blind decision the gun is pulled from his belt and shields him. The shrieks thicken, fast and harsh in his ears. They create an oval shape around him, keeping away. Like he is a monster. He moves forwards with a bubble of protection, pushing into the building; more yelps, more cries as each person sees the gun. He jumps onto the escalator and reaches the first floor- there are elevators now, but Adam finds himself in an emptying stairwell.

“Mom!” He calls into the dispersing crowd, but they are uninterested. A single woman is left behind, heels clapping down the stairs.

“Mrs Spencer? Have you seen Mrs Spencer?” Adam demands. The woman glances at him as she runs past, then glances back before running through the door.

9.04 am. The South Tower. The first floor sign catches Adam’s brief reflection as he rushes past. The door’s been opened, his hands push the gun away and his eyes search around the desks.

“Mom, mom are you here?”

Empty.

9.29 am. The South Tower, Floor 35. He can hear the fireman trundling upstairs. He has no time to search here, but the floor appears clear.

9.41 am. Floor 47. Humidity reaches him here. Sweat swims with blood on his upper lip. His hands quake as he searches every nook and cranny. Nothing.

9.50 am. Floor 56. Adam stares as a man stands at the window. His back is turned from him.

“Why aren’t you out of here?” Adam spits. “You should be out of here!”

The man is silent. Adam doesn’t bother to swipe the tears and sweat on his face. The heat is all-consuming, his blood beats.

“There is no hope,” says the man. The window is open to its fullest.

“We have time to get out of here!” Adam bellows. “Come with me!”

“My wife works on Floor 78,” the man tells him. “Worked.”

The hopelessness is infectious. “I am very sorry sir, I am, but you have to come with me.” An idea takes over all reasonable thought. “Does Angela Spencer work on this floor?”

“Who is Angela?” the man asks.

His throat constricts, his mind goes white hot. It had been a long shot, but if he’d known Mom was safe he could concentrate on saving the man. “Never mind. Why are you still here? You should have been out!”

The man’s face half-turned to him, creases visible even in the clouded light. “What‘s the point, really.”

His fingers curl round the sill and his body is propelled into the swirling, thick blackness. Adam’s mouth locks in a silent scream.

9.57 am. Floor 62. An invisible snake coils around Adam’s lungs. His breath come out in strained whispers. Exhaustion weighs him down. The fire fighters shout at each other some twenty floors below. He could not shout back. His knees touch a hot floor, his hands are red and blue forks raise through the skin. The heat of shame is the worst part of it. He would probably collapse here, and when they found him he would be kicked off the force.

But why does that matter?

Dad put his career before everything. Why did Adam have to be the same? He didn’t- he came up here to rescue Mom, he didn’t wait for the Chief to give him orders. Mom clouded his mind, not what he, as a police officer, should do now.

He crumples to the ground.

Mom, where are you?

9.58 am. Floor 63. But Adam has no idea of where he is. The humidity starts to blind him with watery bars. The building begins to moan. Adam hangs to the handrail, his movement ghostly. The elevators are jammed. This was the only way to Mom. Was she even here? The cries of the dying ring down through the tower.

9.59 am. Floor 63. He hears a distant whistle. A grumble. A crack. Metal screeches above. There is a painful unfamiliarity as he is pinned to the stairs. His vision darkens, but he fights it. Then, he remembers.

Mom and Dad had been fighting. He was on the stairs, next to the kitchen, listening. He had been spending too many hours at the office, she had been nagging him too much, again. Then Dad went out for milk, and a young Adam had scooched down the stairs and skittered to Mom.

“Why does daddy go to work so much?”

Mom plays with his hair and looks down with a withered delicacy. “Because Daddy has to protect us and other people, sweetie. He spends all that time away to make sure we’re safe. That’s the most important thing- that we’re all safe.”

Euphoria paints over the pain, deafens his ears to the falling world. Dust settles in his eyes, and the red light dims to an eternal night.

© 2011 Alskar

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Steve

I like how you keep your readers attention with this write. That is not easy to do and you did nicely with that. I love how your space out the write for reader ease...